Chris Griffin and Alec Waid celebrate their unofficial victory in the student body presidential and vice presidential election on Friday afternoon. ORACLE PHOTO/ADAM MATHIEU

Chris Griffin and Alec Waid celebrated an unofficial presidential and vice presidential victory over the tickets of Michael Malanga and Taylor Sanchez, and Nicole Hudson and Amanda Hill on Friday. 

The general election resulted in a win for the pair, but their announcement as the official winners will be delayed because of an outstanding grievance lodged by Sen. Aladdin Hiba against Griffin.

“(Winning this election) means that our student body believes in me, believes in my vision,” Griffin said. “It’s something that, obviously, I really wanted. I feel like I can do a really great job and to know that our student body also believes in me, it’s a really great feeling.”

Shortly after announcing the unofficial winners of the Student Government (SG) student body general elections, SG Supervisor of Elections Carson Sadro sent out a list of those made official.

Left off the list were the president- and vice president-elect, Griffin and Waid, as well as senators from the College of Business and College of Public Health.

“Please note that some college elections and the President and Vice President election have ongoing grievances and … cannot be certified at this time,” the document from the Election Rules Commission (ERC) said.

The College of Public Health will have a runoff election, so its seats have not been made official.

After becoming elects, Griffin and Waid can start training and preparing for the transition with current student body president Andy Rodriguez and vice president Malanga. 

Griffin and Waid were implicated in a multi-grievance filing regarding alleged violations of senate statutes during their campaign.

Neither elect expressed much concern over the grievance affecting their ticket. Waid said they are going to allow the proceedings to go through and respect the systems put in place, as he is confident he and Griffin ran a clean campaign. He knows he will take the proceedings very seriously.

“I mean, obviously there’s a little bit of nerves there, but I think, having looked up the grievances, I don’t think there’s anything for us really to be worried about,” Griffin said. 

This isn’t the first time grievances have surfaced during an election, but Griffin wouldn’t call it a “common thing.”

Griffin is expecting the grievances to be over and done with within one or two weeks. Waid said the trial requests would be submitted Monday to the ERC.

The focus is what will happen after the grievances are settled, if they are settled in the pair’s favor. The pair will need to set up its cabinet, establish an interview process and start planning out how and when to achieve all of the goals laid out in its campaign platform.

Their campaign focused on parking, academics, community and tradition, going by the acronym P.A.C.T. Some of their initiatives include installing parking spot trackers and creating an online syllabus bank for classes.

Another part of their mission, according to Griffin, is to improve the environment in SG.

“(SG) will be changing a lot, and I think it’s the job of the president and vice president to really set us forward in a positive direction and make sure that we aren’t having all of these difficulties,” he said. 

“I mean, yes there are always going to be hiccups in (SG). We’re students and we’re not going to do everything perfectly, but I think that if we set it up right and we create that positive environment … (then) this next year we shouldn’t have a lot of the drama and negativity that has been in (SG) in this past year.”

If the proceedings do not go in Griffin and Waid’s favor, Waid would be disappointed but is trying not to think about it too much, as he’s relieved be the victory and the end of a long campaign.

“I don’t think I’ve worked for something so hard in a very long time,” Waid said.

The president- and vice president-elect are set to take office in June and serve through the spring 2017 semester. Inauguration will be near the end of this semester.